Obama Administration Moves To Overturn Constitutional Amendments

The Obama administration is on the offensive again in their zeal to protect labor unions, showering them with corrupt deals and political favoritism. The National Labor Relations Board, an agency of the Obama administration, is expanding its authority well beyond that which is its legal charter by bringing lawsuits seeking to overturn constitutional amendments in at least two states.

The constitutional amendments, which guarantee secret ballots for union elections, were legally approved by voters in Arizona and South Dakota.

The National Labor Relations Board, or NRLB, claims it is within its jurisdiction to bring lawsuits against the states preemptively and announced it was moving forward with litigation against the states of South Dakota and Arizona. The lawsuits seek to strike down amendments to those state’s constitutions which were approved by voters in the mid term elections last November. The amendments guarantee that employees have the right to vote via secret ballot on whether to form unions at their workplace. Voters in South Carolina and Utah also passed similar amendments to their constitutions.

According to the preponderance of legal opinions from lawyers and legal scholars, the secret ballot is an implied right within state constitutions. The states took action to clarify and make explicit those rights which are constitutionally implied, thereby guaranteeing the right to the secret ballot for a variety of things, which include elected officials, the referendum process or ballot initiatives, and for employment representation. Because the states made the secret ballot a constitutional certainty, labor unions led by the AFL-CIO filed lawsuits in state courts, banking on support from Barack Obama and activist judges to overturn constitutional amendments.

The audacity of labor unions in the United States has reached epidemic levels. What the union lawsuits say to the American people is that unions enjoy some kind of most favored status which has never before existed in America, that they are more important than the constitution and that they are more important than the will of the people who vote in validly called elections.

Unions believe we are a nation of unions, not laws, and Barack Obama and the progressive radicals with whom he has surrounded himself clearly agree, as they are again using federal agencies and the courts to protect the unions that contribute so much to Obama and the Democratic Party. Because unions spent more than $400 million in 2008 to elect Obama and are expected to spend more than $500 million in 2012 to reelect Obama, the administration is willing to do anything to protect the unions, no matter how illegal or unconstitutional.

The AFL-CIO used the courts in South Dakota in an attempt to prevent the constitutional amendment measure from being placed on the ballot after it was passed by the legislature. The South Dakota Supreme Court ruled the ballot measure was constitutionally proper and could go to voters.

Constitutional amendments passed in the four states by what can only be called landslide margins in November. In Arizona, 61 percent of voters approved the measure. In South Carolina, 86 percent of the voters backed the secret ballot amendment. In South Dakota, 79 percent of the voters approved the amendment, and in Utah the initiative was approved by 60 percent of voters.

The Obama administration, which frequently acts in direct contravention of the law, the constitution and the wishes of voters, is again fighting the union’s unconstitutional war against America.

The effort at the state level was in response to the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, a bill backed by Obama and congressional Democrats which failed to pass. As we have witnessed time and again, when Obama and the Democrats fail to legally pass legislation which would advance their socialist agenda, they simply usurp the Constitution and Congress, and use federal agencies and the courts. In this regard they have consistently backed the unions. Quite simply, Obama and the Democrats can’t afford to alienate unions who will spend a half a billion dollars trying to buy the election of 2012 for Barack Obama.

That a President of the United States so blatantly disregards the Constitution, the Congress and the will of the people is disturbing.

Opponents of card check legislation which so disproportionally favors unions say it opens the door for union organizers to pressure and intimidate employees. Advocates for the bill say that management employs intimidation tactics against workers which keep voters from voting in secret ballot elections. If workers are permitted to vote anonymously, claim unions, unions would never be formed in the workplace. The argument made by unions is a lie.

As in American elections, a secret ballot levels the playing field. The secret ballot is a cornerstone of America’s constitutional republic and has been the law of the land since America was founded. It has recently become unacceptable to unions because the occupant of the White House shares the socialist beliefs of the unions and the unions are seizing this opportunity to further their foothold in the electoral process.

Under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, private-sector employees have two ways to unionize the workplace. Employees may vote in secret-ballot elections conducted by the NLRB, or they may persuade an employer to voluntarily recognize a union after showing majority support for the union. The NLRB contends that the constitutional amendments violate the second provision. Theirs is a ridiculous and false argument.

The states are arguing that they have the right to pass laws, including laws which amend state constitutions. The states will also challenge the NLRB’s authority to even bring the lawsuit.

National Labor Relations Board case law has historically been limited to labor disputes which involve a single employer, not the federal or state governments. The NLRB actions being undertaken on behalf of Obama and the unions are an attempt by the Obama administration to render the American electoral process null and void. If they succeed in usurping the constitution, and invalidating elections, the American republic is finished.